Electronic Records Archive National Archives Needs To Strengthen Its Capacity To Use Earned Value Techniques To Manage And Oversee Development

Electronic Records Archive: National Archives Needs to Strengthen Its Capacity to Use Earned Value Techniques to Manage and Oversee Development

"Since 2001, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been working to develop an Electronic Records Archive (ERA) to preserve and provide access to massive volumes and all types of electronic records. However, in acquiring this system, NARA has repeatedly revised the program schedule and increased the estimated costs for completion from $317 million to $567 million. NARA is to manage this acquisition using, among other things, earned value management (EVM). EVM is a project management approach that, if implemented appropriately, provides objective reports of project status and unbiased estimates of anticipated costs at completion.GAO was asked to (1) assess whether NARA is adequately using EVM techniques to manage the acquisition and (2) evaluate the earned value data to determine ERA's cost and schedule performance. To do so, GAO compared agency and contractor documentation with best practices, evaluated earned value data to determine performance trends, and interviewed cognizant officials. "

Since 2001, NARA has been working to develop an Electronic Records Archive (ERA) to preserve and provide access to massive volumes of all types of electronic records. NARA originally planned to complete the system in 2012, but has repeatedly revised the program schedule and estimated cost, and is now planning to deploy an ERA system with reduced functionality by the end of FY 2011. NARA was required to submit an expenditure plan to Congress to support its request for FY 2011 ERA funding. This review of the FY 2011 plan: (1) determines whether the plan satisfies legislative conditions; and (2) determines the extent to which NARA has implemented prior recommendations. Illus. This is a print on demand report.

The fed. gov't. anticipates spending $79 billion on info. tech. (IT) in FY 2011. The Office of Mgmt. and Budget (OMB) plays a key role in overseeing the implementation and mgmt. of federal IT investments. It is critical for OMB and federal agencies to provide appropriate program oversight and ensure adequate transparency. In 2009 OMB deployed a public Web site known as the IT Dashboard that provides detailed info. on 800 major federal IT investments, incl. assessments of these investments' performance against cost and schedule targets. This testimony discusses OMB's efforts to improve the oversight and mgmt. of federal IT investments through the use of the Dashboard and other efforts. Illus. This is a print on demand report.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE • Every day, thousands of new secrets are created by the United States government. What is all this secrecy really for? And whom does it benefit? “A brilliant, deeply unsettling look at the history and inner workings of ‘the dark state'.... At a time when federal agencies are increasingly classifying or destroying documents with historical significance, this book could not be more important.” —Eric Schlosser, New York Times best-selling author of Command and Control Before World War II, transparent government was a proud tradition in the United States. In all but the most serious of circumstances, classification, covert operations, and spying were considered deeply un-American. But after the war, the power to decide what could be kept secret proved too tempting to give up. Since then, we have radically departed from that open tradition, allowing intelligence agencies, black sites, and classified laboratories to grow unchecked. Officials insist that only secrecy can keep us safe, but its true costs have gone unacknowledged for too long. Using the latest techniques in data science, historian Matthew Connelly analyzes a vast trove of state secrets to unearth not only what the government really did not want us to know but also why they didn’t want us to know it. Culling this research and carefully examining a series of pivotal moments in recent history, from Pearl Harbor to drone warfare, Connelly sheds light on the drivers of state secrecy— especially incompetence and criminality—and how rampant overclassification makes it impossible to protect truly vital information. What results is an astonishing study of power: of the greed it enables, of the negligence it protects, and of what we lose as citizens when our leaders cannot be held to account. A crucial examination of the self-defeating nature of secrecy and the dire state of our nation’s archives, The Declassification Engine is a powerful reminder of the importance of preserving the past so that we may secure our future.